Students may be interested to learn that a preview introductory Mon- Friday off peak train service through London, using the new Canal Tunnel connection at Copenhagen Junction just north of King`s Cross into St. Pancras Thameslink station- Farringdon- Blackfriars- London Bridge, started Monday 26th Feb:

Some off peak M-F trains are now running from Cambridge to Brighton and return, Horsham- Crawley- Redhill to Peterborough and return, ahead of phase one of the new Hatfield-London Bridge and beyond direct overground service starting in May.

Although the preview trains do not currently stop at Hatfield, this initial service could be of use to students with a same platform change at Finsbury Park such as I did yesterday, negating the inconvenience of interchanging with the Underground.
For further info. go to The Hatfield Association Of Rail Travellers` site www.hatfieldrail.com - the Twitter feed on the right hand side of the site page has details/times on www. thameslinkrailway.com/tipreview

Plenty of other info online if you wish to look: surf around www.railforums.uk which is an interesting chat site, with plenty of comments on the new service as you would expect from industry professionals of all levels and armchair/wannabe train drivers alike. If sufficiently interested his site also has a bus forum -with comments about UNO buses especially the 614/644

Finally: while looking at one of these sites, I came across a money saving forum - moneysavingexpert.com - in which an interesting article on the rail ticketing policy entitled " Rail ticket lunacy " is challenged- one by a `Yorkie`, presumably from York/ Yorkshire, who found it cheaper to buy a ticket to Dartford in South London/ Kent than King`s Cross which was his intended destination! As said before, ticketing is done on a marketing and destination rather than mileage basis.